The invention relates generally to theft protection systems for personal property and, more particularly, to such systems which may be removably positioned in or on various types of property. The system deters and/or thwarts theft by utilizing an alarm and a radio transmitter/receiver subsystem to alert the owner of the property of an attempted theft.
With the proliferation of leisure time activities designers of equipment for such activities have sought to make substantial improvements in the performance of such equipment. The performance improvement has been brought about at least partly by the utilization of increasingly more sophisticated designs and more expensive materials used in equipment used for such activities which have resulted in increasingly more expensive equipment. Consequently, the high performance and/or high tech aspect of many types of such equipment which has made them much more expensive than previous versions has produced increasingly higher incidence of theft of such equipment. Moreover, the increased popularity of such activities has produced a burgeoning demand for such types of equipment which are priced relatively inexpensively. Consequently, this burgeoning demand in combination with the high cost of such equipment has caught the attention of both amateur and professional thieves. Since such types of equipment are often designed so that they are compact or relatively light weight, they may be easily picked up and carried away by a thief. In addition, such equipment is often at a golf course or other recreational area where it is impractical to lock up the equipment. The lack of serial numbers on such equipment also makes it more difficult to identify such property as stolen and thus more attractive for would be thieves and also makes thievery of such equipment much more lucrative. In addition, this characteristic makes it not only more difficult to retrieve stolen property and return it to its rightful owner but also makes it more difficult to convict the thief. Consequently, a burgeoning black market for such equipment comprising stolen property has proliferated.
In an attempt to thwart theft of such equipment, many theft protection system and device designs have been marketed. Some of these systems and devices have been designed specifically for certain types of sporting equipment. An example of such a system designed specifically for protecting golf bags is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,041,815 to Newton. The Newton system is portable and adapted for positioning thereof in a golf bag and sounding an alarm when the bag is moved. The Newton system utilizes a mercury switch (and a weight sensitive switch) which results in activation of the alarm when the bag is moved or when one or more of the golf clubs is removed from the bag. However, a primary disadvantage of such a system is that it is designed for connection to a golf cart battery and thus is limited to those applications and situations in which such a battery is available. In addition, such systems are not able to alert the owner of the golf bag of an attempted theft if the owner is too remote from the golf bag to hear the alarm. Moreover, the mercury used in the tilt switch of such systems presents a health hazard to those who use or carry such systems. Also, such mercury tilt switches may not respond effectively to changes in all possible angles of tilt and consequently might not be able to respond to all manner of removal by a thief. In addition, such mercury switches may produce false alarms because they cannot reliably distinguish between actions of the golf bag being lifted and carried away and being simply jarred as when someone innocently bumps into the golf bag or cart.
Some other types of alarm systems have remote capabilities for alerting a person who may be at a remote location. An example of such a device is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,931,772 to Bechtold which utilizes a radio frequency transmitter adapted to be worn by a worker and a radio frequency receiver for positioning at a location remote from the worker. The transmitter includes a mercury switch which senses when the worker gets out of his normal working position thereby indicating that the worker is in jeopardy or is ill and activates the transmitter to transmit a signal to the receiver and activate an alarm. However, as with the Newton design, such mercury switch components are not safe and may produce false alarms. In addition, the Bechtold system does not have a provision for setting the angle of tilt needed to activate the alarm. Moreover, as with the Newton system, the Bechtold system is not capable of distinguishing between accidental bumping and the desired activating movements.
Other types of theft protection systems enable the user to set the tilt angle of the mercury switch of the device. An example of such a system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,162,778 to Williamson. The Williamson mercury switch enables the user to set the rest position of the sensor at a desired tilt angle so that the degree of tilt required to activate the alarm may be set. However, the Williamson switch subsystem is not able to distinguish between accidental bumping and the desired activating movements and is more likely to give false alarms when the rest position of the switch is set so that less tilt is required to activate the alarm.
The above described prior art patented systems do not have the capability of distinguishing between movements of the alarm device comprising a theft and movements of the alarm device not comprising a theft i.e., accidental bumping. In addition, since these prior art patented systems and other typical prior art theft protection systems rely on mercury switches to provide tilt and motion detection, these systems are not safe because there is the possibility that the mercury may leak out of the switch due to damage thereto or by other means and thereby present a highly toxic chemical threat to the user or to others. What is thus needed is a theft protection system that is relatively safe and that provides more reliability in detection of attempted theft.